Major steps needed on climate change, U.N. panel says

“We already know that climate science is unambiguous and that every year the world defers action, the costs only grow. But focusing only on grim realities misses promising realities staring us right in the face,” Kerry said. “This report makes very clear we face an issue of global willpower, not capacity.”

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“The challenge is great, but we still have time to turn back this global threat,” Jennifer Morgan, WRI’s climate and energy program director, said in a statement. “The IPCC offers cost-effective options to change course and avoid locking-in even more dangerous levels of warming.”

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, said the bottom line is clear: “The longer we wait to act, the harder and more expensive it will be.”

Sunday’s report is the latest in a series of reports that make up the IPCC’s fifth climate change assessment. The reports, reviewed by hundreds of experts, amount to one of the most comprehensive analyses of climate change science ever undertaken.

As part of the assessment, the IPCC released a report last month that warned that climate change threatens to reduce crop yields, wipe out poor people’s livelihoods, inundate low-lying lands, worsen droughts and possibly even increase the risks of wars. The group issued a report on the physical science of climate change in September. It will release a final synthesis report in October.

The report comes as the U.S. and other nations work toward reaching a new global climate agreement by the end of 2015 that would take effect starting in 2020. Obama, aware that the United States must show other countries it is willing to lead on the issue, unveiled a wide-ranging climate change plan in June. The centerpiece of that plan is greenhouse gas regulations for new and existing power plants — but, bowing to the realities on the Hill, it doesn’t envision any major steps by Congress.

The IPCC report outlines a number of options for tackling climate change, including:

Energy supply: Effective action requires slashing emissions from power plants by effectively phasing out fossil fuel generation by 2100 — except for plants that capture and store their carbon pollution — and dramatically ramping up reliance on renewable energy, nuclear power and fossil fuels with carbon capture. One strategy could include shifting from coal-fired power to natural gas, as long as the gas industry’s methane emissions can be reduced. While the report touts carbon capture and storage, it notes that the technology “has not yet been applied at scale to a large, operational commercial fossil fuel power plant.”

Buildings: The report touts low-energy building codes, retrofits and reductions of energy use for heating and cooling.

Industry: “The energy intensity of the industry sector could be directly reduced by about 25% compared to the current level through the wide-scale upgrading, replacement and deployment of best available technologies, particularly in countries where these are not in use and in non-energy intensive industries,” the report says.

Forestry: The report says the most effective policies include reducing deforestation, carrying out sustainable forest management and cultivating new forests.